On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced pwans to acqwire LinkedIn for $26.2 biwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah.[16][17] The acqwisition was compweted on December 8, 2016.[18] The transaction resuwted in de payment of approximatewy $26.4 biwwion in cash merger consideration, uh-hah-hah-hah.[19]

The company was founded in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPaw and Sociawnet.com (Awwen Bwue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaiwwant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzew, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, Chris Saccheri).[25] In wate 2003, Seqwoia Capitaw wed de Series A investment in de company.[26] In August 2004, LinkedIn reached 1 miwwion users.[27] In March 2006, LinkedIn achieved its first monf of profitabiwity.[27] In Apriw 2007, LinkedIn reached 10 miwwion users.[27] In February 2008, LinkedIn waunched a mobiwe version of de site.[28]

In June 2008, Seqwoia Capitaw, Greywock Partners, and oder venture capitaw firms purchased a 5% stake in de company for $53 miwwion, giving de company a post-money vawuation of approximatewy $1 biwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah.[29] In 2010, LinkedIn opened an Internationaw Headqwarters in Dubwin, Irewand,[30] received a $20 miwwion investment from Tiger Gwobaw Management LLC at a vawuation of approximatewy $2 biwwion,[31] announced its first acqwisition, Mspoke,[32] and improved its 1% premiumsubscription ratio.[33] In October of dat year, Siwicon Vawwey Insider ranked de company No. 10 on its Top 100 List of most vawuabwe start ups.[34] By December, de company was vawued at $1.575 biwwion in private markets.[35]

LinkedIn office buiwding at 222 Second Street in San Francisco (opened in March 2016)

LinkedIn Office in Toronto.

LinkedIn fiwed for an initiaw pubwic offering in January 2011. The company traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under de NYSE symbow "LNKD", at $45 per share. Shares of LinkedIn rose as much as 171% on deir first day of trade on de New York Stock Exchange and cwosed at $94.25, more dan 109% above IPO price. Shortwy after de IPO, de site's underwying infrastructure was revised to awwow accewerated revision-rewease cycwes.[12] In 2011, LinkedIn earned $154.6 miwwion in advertising revenue awone, surpassing Twitter, which earned $139.5 miwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah.[36] LinkedIn's fourf-qwarter 2011 earnings soared because of de company's increase in success in de sociaw media worwd.[37] By dis point, LinkedIn had about 2,100 fuww-time empwoyees compared to de 500 dat it had in 2010.[38]

In Q2 2012, LinkedIn weased 57,120 sqware feet on dree fwoors of de One Montgomery Tower buiwding in de Financiaw District of San Francisco, which was expanded to 135,000 sqware feet by 2014.[39][40] In May 2012, LinkedIn announced dat its Q1 2012 revenues were up to $188.5 miwwion compared to $93.9 miwwion in Q1 2011. Net income increased 140% over Q1 2011 to $5 miwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah. Revenue for Q2 was estimated to be between $210 to $215 miwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah.[41] In November 2012, LinkedIn reweased its dird qwarter earnings, reporting earnings-per-share of $0.22 on revenue of $252 miwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah. As a resuwt of dese numbers, LinkedIn's stock increased to roughwy $112 a share.[42]

In Apriw 2014, LinkedIn announced dat it had weased 222 Second Street, a 26-story buiwding under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its empwoyees,[40] wif de wease covering 10 years.[2] The goaw was to join aww San Francisco-based staff (1,250 as of January 2016) in one buiwding, bringing sawes and marketing empwoyees togeder wif de research and devewopment team.[2] They started to move in in March 2016.[2] In February 2016, fowwowing an earnings report, LinkedIn's shares dropped 43.6% widin a singwe day, down to $108.38 per share. LinkedIn wost $10 biwwion of its market capitawization dat day.[43][44] On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced dat it wouwd acqwire LinkedIn for $196 a share, a totaw vawue of $26.2 biwwion and de wargest acqwisition made by Microsoft to date. The acqwisition wouwd be an aww-cash, debt-financed transaction, uh-hah-hah-hah. Microsoft wouwd awwow LinkedIn to "retain its distinct brand, cuwture and independence", wif Weiner to remain as CEO, who wouwd den report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadewwa. Anawysts bewieved Microsoft saw de opportunity to integrate LinkedIn wif its Office product suite to hewp better integrate de professionaw network system wif its products. The deaw was compweted on December 8, 2016.[17]

In wate 2016, LinkedIn announced a pwanned increase of 200 new positions in its Dubwin office, which wouwd bring de totaw empwoyee count to 1,200.[45]

In 2013, a cwass actionwawsuit entitwed Perkins vs. LinkedIn Corp was fiwed against de company, accusing it of automaticawwy sending invitations to contacts in a member's emaiw address book widout permission, uh-hah-hah-hah. The court agreed wif LinkedIn dat permission had in fact been given for invitations to be sent, but not for de two furder reminder emaiws.[68] LinkedIn settwed de wawsuit in 2015 for $13 miwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah.[69] Many members shouwd have received a notice in deir emaiw wif de subject wine "Legaw Notice of Settwement of Cwass Action". The Case No. is 13-CV-04303-LHK .[70]

Sociaw media websites can awso use "traditionaw" marketing approaches, as seen in dese LinkedIn-branded chocowates.

As of 2015, LinkedIn had more dan 400 miwwion members in over 200 countries and territories.[12][71] It is significantwy ahead of its competitors Viadeo (50 miwwion as of 2013)[72] and XING (11 miwwion as of 2016).[73] In 2011, its membership grew by approximatewy two new members every second.[74]

The basic functionawity of LinkedIn awwows users (workers and empwoyers) to create profiwes, which for empwoyees typicawwy consist of a curricuwum vitae describing deir work experience, education and training, skiwws, and a personaw photo. The site awso enabwes members to make "connections" to each oder in an onwinesociaw network which may represent reaw-worwd professionaw rewationships. Members can invite anyone (wheder a site member or not) to become a connection, uh-hah-hah-hah. However, if de invitee sewects "I don't know" or "Spam", dis counts against de inviter. If de inviter gets too many of such responses, de member's account may be restricted or cwosed.[10]

A member's wist of connections can den be used in a number of ways:

Users can obtain introductions to de connections of connections (termed second-degree connections) and connections of second-degree connections (termed dird-degree connections)

Users can search for second-degree connections who work at a specific company dey are interested in, and den ask a specific first-degree connection in common for an introduction[75]

Users can find jobs, peopwe and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.

Users can "wike" and "congratuwate" each oder's updates and new empwoyments.

Users can wish each oder a happy birdday.

Users can see who has visited deir profiwe page.

The "gated-access approach" (where contact wif any professionaw reqwires eider an existing rewationship, or de intervention of a contact of deirs) is intended to buiwd trust among de service's users. LinkedIn participated in de EU's Internationaw Safe Harbor Privacy Principwes.[citation needed]

In June 2012, cryptographic hashes of approximatewy 6.4 miwwion LinkedIn user passwords were stowen by hackers who den pubwished de stowen hashes onwine.[76] This action is known as de 2012 LinkedIn hack. In response to de incident, LinkedIn asked its users to change deir passwords. Security experts criticized LinkedIn for not sawting deir password fiwe and for using a singwe iteration of SHA-1.[77] On May 31, 2013 LinkedIn added two-factor audentication, an important security enhancement for preventing hackers from gaining access to accounts.[78] In May 2016, 117 miwwion LinkedIn usernames and passwords were offered for sawe onwine for de eqwivawent of $2,200.[79] These account detaiws are bewieved to be sourced from de originaw 2012 LinkedIn hack, in which de number of user IDs stowen had been underestimated. To handwe de warge vowume of emaiws sent to its users every day wif notifications for messages, profiwe views, important happenings in deir network, and oder dings, LinkedIn uses de Momentum emaiw pwatform from Message Systems.[80]

LinkedIn 'appwications' often refers to externaw dird party appwications dat interact wif LinkedIn's devewoper API. However, in some cases it couwd refer to sanctioned appwications featured on a user's profiwe page.

On February 12, 2015 LinkedIn reweased an updated terms of use for deir devewoper API.[81] The devewoper API awwows bof companies and individuaws de abiwity to interact wif LinkedIn's data drough creation of managed dird party appwications. Appwications must go drough a review process and reqwest permission from de user before accessing a user's data.

On a more rare occasion, appwications have been devewoped by dird parties to extend LinkedIn's native functions. For instance, LinkedIn does not awwow users to define images dat correwate wif articwes or winks dey share, but dis can be done using a dird party appwication wike LinkedIn Advanced Share.

In October 2008, LinkedIn enabwed an "appwications pwatform" which awwows externaw onwine services to be embedded widin a member's profiwe page. Among de initiaw appwications were an Amazon Reading List dat awwows LinkedIn members to dispway books dey are reading, a connection to Tripit, and a Six Apart, WordPress and TypePad appwication dat awwows members to dispway deir watest bwog postings widin deir LinkedIn profiwe.[82] In November 2010, LinkedIn awwowed businesses to wist products and services on company profiwe pages; it awso permitted LinkedIn members to "recommend" products and services and write reviews.[83] Shortwy after, some of de externaw services were no wonger supported, incwuding Amazon's Reading List [84]

A mobiwe version of de site was waunched in February 2008, which gives access to a reduced feature set over a mobiwe phone. The mobiwe service is avaiwabwe in six wanguages: Chinese, Engwish, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.[85] In January 2011, LinkedIn acqwired CardMunch, a mobiwe app maker dat scans business cards and converts into contacts.[86] In June 2013, CardMunch was noted as an avaiwabwe LinkedIn app.[12] In August 2011, LinkedIn revamped its mobiwe appwications on de iPhone, Android and HTML5. At de time, mobiwe page views of de appwication were increasing roughwy 400% year over year according to CEO Jeff Weiner.[87] In October 2013, LinkedIn announced a service for iPhone users cawwed "Intro", which inserts a dumbnaiw of a person's LinkedIn profiwe in correspondence wif dat person when reading maiw messages in de native iOS Maiw program.[88] This is accompwished by re-routing aww emaiws from and to de iPhone drough LinkedIn servers, which security firm Bishop Fox asserts has serious privacy impwications, viowates many organizations' security powicies, and resembwes a man-in-de-middwe attack.[89][90]

LinkedIn awso supports de formation of interest groups, and as of March 29, 2012 dere are 1,248,019 such groups whose membership varies from 1 to 744,662.[91][92] The majority of de wargest groups are empwoyment rewated, awdough a very wide range of topics are covered mainwy around professionaw and career issues, and dere are currentwy[when?] 128,000 groups for bof academic and corporate awumni.[citation needed] Groups support a wimited form of discussion area, moderated by de group owners and managers.[93] Since groups offer de functionawity to reach a wide audience widout so easiwy fawwing fouw of anti-spam sowutions, dere is a constant stream of spam postings, and dere now exist a range of firms who offer a spamming service for dis very purpose. LinkedIn has devised a few mechanisms to reduce de vowume of spam,[94] but recentwy[when?] took de decision to remove de abiwity of group owners to inspect de emaiw address of new members in order to determine if dey were spammers.[citation needed] Groups awso keep deir members informed drough emaiws wif updates to de group, incwuding most tawked about discussions widin your professionaw circwes.[91][95] Groups may be private, accessibwe to members onwy or may be open to Internet users in generaw to read, dough dey must join in order to post messages.

In December 2011, LinkedIn announced dat dey are rowwing out powws to groups.[96] In November 2013, LinkedIn announced de addition of Showcase Pages to de pwatform.[97] In 2014, LinkedIn announced dey were going to be removing Product and Services Pages[98] paving de way for a greater focus on Showcase Pages.[99]

LinkedIn awwows users to research companies, non-profit organizations, and governments dey may be interested in working for. Typing de name of a company or organization in de search box causes pop-up data about de company or organization to appear. Such data may incwude de ratio of femawe to mawe empwoyees, de percentage of de most common titwes/positions hewd widin de company, de wocation of de company's headqwarters and offices, and a wist of present and former empwoyees. In Juwy 2011, LinkedIn waunched a new feature awwowing companies to incwude an "Appwy wif LinkedIn" button on job wisting pages.[100] The new pwugin awwowed potentiaw empwoyees to appwy for positions using deir LinkedIn profiwes as resumes.[100]

Job recruiters, head hunters, and personnew HR are increasingwy using LinkedIn as a source for finding potentiaw candidates. By using de Advanced search toows, recruiters can find members matching deir specific key words wif a cwick of a button, uh-hah-hah-hah. They den can make contact wif dose members by sending a reqwest to connect or by sending InMaiw about a specific job opportunity he or she may have. Recruiters awso often join industry based groups on LinkedIn to create connections wif professionaws in dat wine of business.[101]

Since September 2012, LinkedIn has enabwed users to "endorse" each oder's skiwws. This feature awso awwows users to efficientwy provide commentary on oder users' profiwes – network buiwding is reinforced. However, dere is no way of fwagging anyding oder dan positive content.[102] LinkedIn sowicits endorsements using awgoridms dat generate skiwws members might have. Members cannot opt out of such sowicitations, wif de resuwt dat it sometimes appears dat a member is sowiciting an endorsement for a non-existent skiww.[103]

LinkedIn continues to add different services to its pwatform to expand de ways dat peopwe use it. On May 7, 2015, LinkedIn added an anawytics toow to its pubwishing pwatform. The toow awwows audors to better track traffic dat deir posts receive.[104]

In mid-2008, LinkedIn waunched LinkedIn DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.[108] In October 2008, LinkedIn reveawed pwans to open its sociaw network of 30 miwwion professionaws gwobawwy as a potentiaw sampwe for business-to-business research. It is testing a potentiaw sociaw network revenue modew - research dat to some appears more promising dan advertising.[109] On Juwy 23, 2013, LinkedIn announced deir Sponsored Updates ad service. Individuaws and companies can now pay a fee to have LinkedIn sponsor deir content and spread it to deir user base. This is a common way for sociaw media sites such as LinkedIn to generate revenue.[110]

Inspired by Facebook's "sociaw graph", LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner set a goaw in 2012 to create an "economic graph" widin a decade.[111] The goaw is to create a comprehensive digitaw map of de worwd economy and de connections widin it.[112] The economic graph was to be buiwt on de company's current pwatform wif data nodes incwuding companies, jobs, skiwws, vowunteer opportunities, educationaw institutions, and content.[113][114][115] They have been hoping to incwude aww de job wistings in de worwd, aww de skiwws reqwired to get dose jobs, aww de professionaws who couwd fiww dem, and aww de companies (nonprofit and for-profit) at which dey work.[113] The uwtimate goaw is to make de worwd economy and job market more efficient drough increased transparency.[111] In June 2014, de company announced its "Gawene" search architecture to give users access to de economic graph's data wif more dorough fiwtering of data, via user searches wike "Engineers wif Hadoop experience in Braziw."[116][117]

LinkedIn has used economic graph data to research severaw topics on de job market, incwuding popuwar destination cities of recent cowwege graduates,[118] areas wif high concentrations of technowogy skiwws,[119] and common career transitions.[120] LinkedIn provided de City of New York wif data from economic graph showing "in-demand" tech skiwws for de city's "Tech Tawent Pipewine" project.[121]

Soon after LinkedIn's acqwisition by Microsoft, on January 19, 2017, LinkedIn's new desktop version was introduced.[122] The new version was meant to make de user experience seamwess across mobiwe and desktop. Some of de changes were made according to de feedback received from de previouswy waunched mobiwe app. Features dat were not heaviwy used were removed. For exampwe, de contact tagging and fiwtering features are not supported any more.[123]

Fowwowing de waunch of de new interface, some users, incwuding bwogger Zubair Abbas, compwained about missing features which were dere in de owder version, swowness and bugs in de UI.[124] The issues were faced by bof free and premium users, and wif bof de desktop version and de mobiwe version of de site.

In January 2013, LinkedIn dropped support for LinkedIn Answers, and cited a new 'focus on devewopment of new and more engaging ways to share and discuss professionaw topics across LinkedIn' as de reason for de retirement of de feature. The feature had been waunched in 2007, and awwowed users to post qwestion to deir network and awwowed users to rank answers.[125]

LinkedIn has been described by onwine trade pubwicationTechRepubwic as having "become de de facto toow for professionaw networking".[127] LinkedIn has awso been praised for its usefuwness in fostering business rewationships.[128] "LinkedIn is, far and away, de most advantageous sociaw networking toow avaiwabwe to job seekers and business professionaws today," according to Forbes.[129] LinkedIn has awso received criticism, primariwy regarding e-maiw address mining and auto-update.

The sign-up process incwudes a step for entering your emaiw password (dere is an opt-out feature). LinkedIn wiww den offer to send out contact invitations to aww members in your address book or dat you have had emaiw conversation wif. When de member's emaiw address book is opened it is opened wif aww emaiw addresses sewected and de member is advised invitations wiww be sent to "sewected" emaiw addresses, or to aww. Up to 1,500 invitations can den be sent out in one cwick, wif no possibiwity to undo or widdraw dem. LinkedIn was sued for sending out anoder two fowwow-up invitations to each contact from members to wink to friends who had ignored de initiaw, audorized, invitation, uh-hah-hah-hah. In November 2014, LinkedIn wost a motion to dismiss de wawsuit, in a ruwing dat de invitations were advertisements not broadwy protected by free speech rights dat wouwd oderwise permit use of peopwe's names and images widout audorization, uh-hah-hah-hah.[130][131][132][133] The wawsuit was eventuawwy settwed in 2015 in favor of LinkedIn members.[69]

Changing de description bewow a member's name is seen as a change in a job titwe, even if it is just a wording change or even a change to "unempwoyed". Unwess a member opts to "turn off activity updates", an update is sent to aww of dat person's contacts, tewwing dem to congratuwate de member on de "new job".[134]

The feature dat awwows LinkedIn members to "endorse" each oder's skiwws and experience has been criticized as meaningwess, since de endorsements are not necessariwy accurate or given by peopwe who have famiwiarity wif de member's skiwws.[135] In October 2016, LinkedIn acknowwedged dat it "reawwy does matter who endorsed you" and began highwighting endorsements from "coworkers and oder mutuaw connections" to address de criticism.[136]

In 2009, Syrian users reported dat LinkedIn server stopped accepting connections originating from IP addresses assigned to Syria. The company's customer support stated dat services provided by dem are subject to US export and re-export controw waws and reguwations and "As such, and as a matter of corporate powicy, we do not awwow member accounts or access to our site from Cuba, Iran, Norf Korea, Sudan, or Syria."[139]

In February 2011, it was reported dat LinkedIn was being bwocked in China after cawws for a "Jasmine Revowution". It was specuwated to have been bwocked because it is an easy way for dissidents to access Twitter, which had been bwocked previouswy.[140] After a day of being bwocked, LinkedIn access was restored in China.[141]

In February 2014, LinkedIn waunched its Simpwified Chinese wanguage version named "领英" (pinyin: Lǐngyīng; witerawwy: "weading ewite"), officiawwy extending deir service in China.[142][143] LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner acknowwedged in a bwog post dat dey wouwd have to censor some of de content dat users post on its website in order to compwy wif Chinese ruwes, but he awso said de benefits of providing its onwine service to peopwe in China outweighed dose concerns.[142][144]

On 4 August 2016, a Moscow court ruwed dat LinkedIn must be bwocked in Russia for viowating a new data retention waw, which reqwires de user data of Russian citizens to be stored on servers widin de country. This ban was uphewd on 10 November 2016, and aww Russian ISPs began bwocking LinkedIn dereafter. LinkedIn's mobiwe app was awso banned from Googwe Pway Store and iOS App Store in Russia in January 2017.[145][146]

^"LinkedIn, uh-hah-hah-hah.com, a business-orientated networking site, can be an ideaw way for professionaws to present an onwine profiwe of demsewves ... Unwike sociaw networking sites, [wif] LinkedIn you're outwining aww your credentiaws; presenting de professionaw rader dan de personaw you. Considering de sheer vastness of de digitaw space, de potentiaw for buiwding up a sowid base of contacts and fostering new business rewationships is boundwess." O'Suwwivan, James (2011), "Make de most of de networking toows dat are avaiwabwe", Evening Echo, May 9, 2011. Pg 32. Note dat de Evening Echo is wocated cwose to de European headqwarters of LinkedIn